Virtual
War Memorial
Australia

Enlistment
Hugh Borden enlisted in the Australian Imperial Force in Melbourne on 27 June 1916. At the time of enlistment, he was 22 years and four months old and listed his occupation as ‘farmer’. He nominated his mother, Mrs Margret Borden of Watchem, Victoria, as his next-of-kin, and an entry on his enlistment papers notes that his father was deceased. Hugh Borden was single and had no previous military service.

Hugh was allocated to the 5th Reinforcements of the 57th Battalion. The 57th Battalion was formed in Egypt in early 1916 as part of the expansion of the AIF with half of its men coming from the 5th Battalion and half from recruits that had previously joined and were in camp near Cairo. The 57th Battalion recruited its new members from regional Victoria. The 5th Reinforcements undertook initial training in Victoria possibly at Seymour or Broadmeadows. Hugh Borden had been honoured with a farewell party however no details of where this occurred remain. He did attend a similar event for his friend from Watchem Private Phil Carne.

Sets Sail for Europe
On the 25th of September 1916 the 5th Reinforcements, along with other recruits, embarked on HMAT Shropshire for England. The Shropshire berthed in England on the 11th of November 1916. Four days after leaving Melbourne Hugh was admitted to the hospital isolation ward suffering from VD and spent most of the voyage in hospital. Soon after arriving in the UK, Hugh was readmitted to hospital with influenza.

Hugh joined his comrades in the 15th Training Battalion at Woolwich. The 15th Training Battalion contained all the new recruits for the four battalions in the 15th Brigade – the 57th, 58th, 59th and 60th Battalions. On the 30th of December he embarked on the troopship Princess Clementine at Folkstone bound for France.
On arrival at Etaples, in France, Borden undertook the standard training program in France for all soldiers before they went to their units and the front.

Arrival at the 57th Battalion
Hugh Borden’s file notes that he is ‘taken on strength’ of the 57th Battalion on 7 March 1917. On that day the battalion was in the trenches near Geudecourt on the Somme. It’s unlikely that he went into the trenches that day but would have been with a ‘draft’ of reinforcements that reported to the 57th Battalion’s administration headquarters some kilometres to the rear. The War Diary for the Battalion for 14 March 1917 notes, “Our strength was increased with the arrival of 21 OR (other ranks). Returned Wounded and Reinforcements.” These men would have been led up the communication trenches, probably at night, into the support line trenches. Hugh would have been allocated to a section to fill a vacancy caused by the death or wounding of a soldier. Immediately he would have been given a short tour of the part of the trench that he was responsible for, and possibly the time that he was to be on sentry duty that night.

The next evening the 57th Battalion took over the front-line trenches from the 60th Battalion. In March 1917, the Germans were conducting a general withdrawal across the front to the fortified positions known as the Hindenburg Line. When this happens, the opposing infantry tries to disrupt this withdrawal by pressuring the enemy, basically attacking the withdrawing Germans. It’s not clear what role Hugh Borden had in this operation, but the Battalion diary notes, “The movement will be carried out by A Company maximum 120 all ranks.” Whatever role Hugh played, this was his first offensive operation in the war and would have filled him with excitement and fear at the same time.

By the 19th of March, the 57th was out of the front-line trenches in ‘Divisional Reserve’ and this meant work parties. “400 men were employed on Road work near Geudecourt,” and “40 men employed brining in the dead.”

“Resting” at Contay
We often hear about soldiers ‘resting’ and this conjures up images of soldiers lying around writing letters or playing ‘two-up’ behind a café, this is a misleading image. ‘Resting ‘meant the units weren’t in the trenches, but there was plenty of work to be done as well as route marches and tactical training. Contay is a quiet rural area now but during the war, it was alive with all the machinery of war – ammunition dumps, supply warehouses, bakeries, butcheries, repair depots, baths, headquarters and hospitals. When Hugh Borden was billeted at Contay with the 57th Battalion, the 58th Battalion, the 15th Machine Gun Company and the 15th Light Trench Mortar Battery were also at Contay, some 2,500 men plus their horses.

The behind the lines cafés is where soldiers met the local French people in bars, billets, cafés and farms. Many years ago, we had dinner in a small café and were paying for our meal on the way out. It was a Friday and the place was full of local people. A very old lady found out that we were Australians and, through the patron of the café who spoke some English, said that she wanted to give us a message. She said that she was too young for the war, but her father was a boy then and he remembered the kindness of the Australians well. He told her that if she ever met an Australian, she was to thank them on his behalf. On that April evening in 2000, we were the first Australians that she had met and the first time that she had an opportunity to carry out her father’s wish.

Back to Belgium
In September 1917, the 57th Battalion returned to Belgium along with the other units of the 5th Division to prepare for the upcoming offensive. Initially in billets and camps near Reninglest, west of Ypres, they moved forward to the sound of the guns.
Hugh Borden was in the thick of the action at Polygon Wood from 26 September. The Australian War Memorial and Wikipedia both have good descriptions of this battle. At 5.50 pm on 27th September the 57th Battalion received orders to move back to Ypres as their role was finished. At Shrapnel Corner (the roundabout just to the south of the Lille Gate), the troops received hot drinks. From there they went further to the rear over the coming days and reorganised after their torrid time in battle.

Wounded at Polygon Wood
There is some confusion about the actual date of Hugh receiving his wound. One page in his record states that he was wounded on 2 October 1917, while another page notes that an entry was made from a report received on 28 September. Given that the 57th Battalion was out of the frontline on the evening of the 27th, this raises the possibility that it was either a transcription error or that he was wounded whilst in a work party on the 28th. A party went out on the 28th of September to retrieve the bodies of two officers. It is possible that he was one of this party and received a wound on this task, but the battalion diary makes no mention of casualties. The most likely thing is that Hugh was wounded during the fighting on the 26th or 27th of September during the main attack at Polygon Wood. In any case, Hugh Borden received a gunshot wound to the right leg around this time and was transported back to the 10th Casualty Clearing Station at Lijssenthoek, and admitted there on 3 October 1917. On 4 October he was in the South African General Hospital at Abbeville, and on 10 November 1917 evacuated to England and admitted to the Leytonstone hospital.

Back to the War
In January 1918 he was discharged from hospital and reported to the No. 3 Command Depot at Hurdcott where wounded and newly arrived soldiers underwent training to get them ready to go back to the front in Belgium and France. This training continued until late May 1918 when he once again embarked for France. During his time at Hurdcott he went ‘absent without leave’ for two days for which he received a fine of two days’ pay. These instances were common among troops, especially while in training camps, and they typically occurred when soldiers overstayed their authorized leave passes.
Hugh and the whole of the AIF fought the last hard months of the war prior to the Armistice. The Battle of Amiens on 8 August 1918 is recognized as Day 1 of the Hundred Days leading up to 11 November; however, most Australians were out of the fight by 5 October 1918.

War’s End
There are no further entries in his diary until 1919. Hugh went to Paris on leave from 7th to 14th of February and then to the UK on leave on 1 March 1919. It seems that Hugh was eligible to return to Australia in May but stayed in England to undertake training in non-military employment. In July that year he went to Scotland on leave.

On the 7th of September 1919, Hugh Borden boarded the HMAT Euripides and set sail for Melbourne and the return to civilian life.